Akane Kurashiki
June |number = 6 |gender = Female |age = 12 21 22 67 |hair = Brown |eye = Purple |occupation = Unknown (Most likely a college student) |status = Alive |relative = Aoi Kurashiki (brother) |affiliates = Junpei (Childhood crush and former classmate) Light (Fellow test subject) Nona Kashiwabara (Fellow test subject) |appearances = Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward |voice = Yoshiko Sakakibara (Japanese) Miyuki Sawashiro (Japanese) Barabara Goodson (English) Ali Hillis (English) }} Akane Kurashiki, commonly known as June, is one of the nine players in the Nonary Game. The number on her bracelet is six. She is twenty-one years old, and is childhood friends with Junpei. She seemingly has romantic feelings for her childhood friend, Junpei, whom she has affectionately nicknamed Jumpy. According to her own words, like the others, she came home around midnight and found herself engulfed in a soporific smoke. Before passing out from the smoke, she saw a person in a gas mask wearing a black cape, who spoke to her through a voice changer: Zero. Appearance Akane is a young woman with shoulder length brown hair. Her bit of her hair is tied up on the left side of her face in the shape of a flower. She wears a black shawl, multi-colored arm sleeves, and a purple dress with brown boots. During the events of the Second Nonary Game, Akane wears a Bracelet with the number 6 on it. In Junpei's flashback when they were kids as well as Akane's flashback during her time in the First Nonary Game, Akane wore a pink sweater over a white shirt and red tie, a black-blue hairband, a blue knee-length skirt, and black boots. During the First Nonary Game she also wore a bracelet, and its number was 5. In Virtue's Last Reward young adult Akane appears to Sigma in the post game wearing a Free the Soul robe. During the Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition, Akane appears as an older woman with her now white shoulder-length hair neatly tied up in a ponytail and slung over her shoulder. She wears a purple turtleneck dress and has a ring on her right ring finger Personality Akane was very cheerful throughout the Nonary Game, despite the fact that her life was in constant danger. She trusted all the players, and objected to anyone being left behind, even if it was the only way to proceed the Game. This cheerful and happy demeanor carried over much into her later life when meeting Sigma and K on Rhizome 9, becoming a maternal figure for K. In reality, Akane can be a cold, sadistic, cruel, and calculating individual, though this personality stems from her desire to create the future she wishes to have whenever under the persona of Zero. Akane shares a close bond with Junpei which stems from their childhood when the two became close. It is because of this bond that Akane and Junpei are subconsciously linked via Morphogenetic Resonation. All of Akane's motivations during the events of 999 and Virtue's Last Reward are all the result of her desire to create the best future for Junpei and herself. Background Childhood Some time early in her childhood, Akane's parents died in a car crash. Her older brother Aoi Kurashiki became her guardian and the two lived happily together. In elementary school, she befriended a fellow classmate, Junpei. Akane and Junpei were tasked with taking care of the school's pet rabbits. One day, all of the rabbits in their hutch were slaughtered. Upon seeing her shocked and saddened expression, Junpei set out to find the culprit, which turned out to be five 8th grade students in the same school as them. Junpei watched the students preparing to torture a kitten by soaking it with gasoline and lighting it on fire. Junpei came to the conclusion that they were the ones who killed the rabbits. In a manner of revenge for that incident, Junpei jumped forward, snatched the kitten, gave it to Akane, and fought the five students all by himself. Scared, Akane ran to the police. When she got back to Junpei, the eight culprits were gone, having left Junpei covered with bruises. After this, Junpei gave her a doll as a memento since Akane was moving to another school in June. It turned out that the doll was actually a voodoo doll, a fact that Junpei was not aware of when he bought it. So they decided to not name the doll Junpei, as was suggested; instead they opted for "June", as June was the end of their time together. Presumably, this is when Akane fell in love with Junpei. First Nonary Game Akane, her brother, and 16 other children were kidnapped shortly after being given and passing a test in one of Cradle Pharmaceutical's many hospitals. A mistake placed her in the Gigantic with her brother instead of Building Q. At one point during the Nonary Game, when everyone was frightened, Light encouraged everyone with a 4-leaf clover he had picked out for his sister's birthday. Akane worked with the others to solve the puzzles and eventually reached Door [9] in the incinerator. After some discussion about who should go through, Seven the detective rescued her along with some kids left behind, including her brother Aoi. During their escape on the spiral staircase, Akane realized that she dropped June, the doll Junpei had given her. She found it near the incinerator door, which unfortunately led to her being captured by Gentarou Hongou. She was thrown helplessly inside the incinerator, with Hongou escaping after locking the door to the incinerator. Aoi, Light, and the detective arrived soon after, but they had no means of opening the door. Akane was left alone in the incinerator with a lone puzzle as her only means of escape. Frightened and unable to solve the puzzle, Akane was killed in the incinerator, leaving behind only her bracelet. However this incineration outcome was nothing more than an alternate route which resulted whenever Junpei, 9 years later in the Second Nonary Game, did not choose the right events leading to the puzzle in the incinerator. When Junpei finally did reach the incinerator in the correct route, Junpei established a morphogenetic resonance with Akane, 9 years in the past. With Junpei guiding her through the final puzzle, she escaped the room. She rejoined with Aoi and everyone else and escaped the sinking Gigantic. After the ordeal Akane began to prepare the events of the Second Nonary Game based off of all of the memories and data she received from Junpei's morphogenetic resonance. This was done to prevent a time paradox which would have lead to her demise. She also made the Second Nonary Game as a means to get revenge on Hongou and the other 3 founders of the First Nonary Game. As Akane prepared for all this (the ship, the puzzles, the weapons, the bracelets, everything), her inner hatred and wicked intelligence slowly gave birth to Zero: her cold, ruthless, mad, and sadistic side, the false identity she was going to use as the host of the next Nonary Game. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors After all preparations for the Second Nonary Game were completed, she donned a black cape and a gas mask along with a voice changer, thus assuming her other identity: Zero. As Zero, she kidnapped the 7 other participants of the game: Gentarou Hongou, Light, Clover, Junpei, Seven, Hazuki Kashiwabara, and Teruaki Kubota using sleeping gas grenades. She also kidnapped two other executives of Cradle Pharmaceutical, drugging the two of them into a vulnerable condition. She transferred them all into Building Q, and then entered the ship as a participant along with her brother. She activated the bomb below this 'ship', and the game began. As the one who orchestrated the Second Nonary Game, she was not seen with the other 7 players of the game. Instead, she was seen a little later when Junpei rushed back to the central staircase. She had fallen on top of him, which had resulted in Junpei recognizing her as Akane Kurashiki. Soon, a voice spoke to all the 9 players through the intercom. He introduced himself as "Zero", the captain of the "ship" they were trapped in. Junpei read a letter containing information about the numbered doors and the time limit of 9 hours. The 9 of them then began their separate investigations of the current range of the ship they could access. They later told each other what they found out, with the only way to escape was to proceed through the numbered doors. When they were choosing codenames, she insisted to be called by her real name since she accidentally revealed Junpei's name but Junpei decided to give her the codename "June" since the number shown on her bracelet was 6. Once she chose her codename, Kubota was requested to choose a codename but soon took hostage of Clover with a knife, as planned by Ace and to some extent Akane. He was soon codenamed the 9th Man and had forced Clover and Ace to authenticate with him at the RED of Door 5 but realized at the last minute he was tricked when he entered the numbered door by himself. As the 9th Man died, Akane suddenly gained a fever after looking at his remains and cried on why he had to be killed. After a few minutes, she finally calmed down. Santa insists that the group has to get moving through the numbered doors, but everyone is anxious after seeing the 9th Man's corpse. After some reassuring from Snake's message from Zero, they split themselves up into two groups. Ace, Snake, Clover and Seven go into Door 5, while Santa, Junpei, June, and Lotus go into Door 4. At the end of the long hallway was the DEAD. The group quickly authenticated and checked the three doors near them. Two of the doors, B92 and B93 opened, while the double doors were locked. Behind the two doors were two separate rooms of the 2nd class cabin. She and Junpei examined B92 while Santa and Lotus looked through B93. She was very flirtatious with Junpei in the room and after some questioning, she told him about her belief that a curse sank the Titanic. Apparently, a cursed coffin was on-board the Titanic and held the body of Priestess Amon-Ra. The priestess' body was preserved by being frozen and would never melt. Junpei scoffed at the idea of a curse and continued the look through both of the rooms until he finally obtained the key. They then moved on to the kitchen. She brings up the Titanic again in the freezer, mentioning that the disaster was predicted to happen by a book called Futility and passenger by the name of William Thomas Stead. Junpei pushes the idea of the curse aside once again and finds a bottle of oil that will open the freezer and lead to the group (except Lotus) to be stuck in there. Lotus tries to open the door from the other side, but to no avail. The 3 of them quickly examine the room for a way out. When Junpei picks up a bag of dry ice, Santa mentions that you can make an explosion with the carbon dioxide and wonders why it doesn't turn into a liquid. Akane comes into the conversation and tells the two confused men that carbon dioxide goes directly from a solid to a gas. The conversation wanders off to where she also tells them about Ice-9 and how the crystallization of glycerin came about. Santa cuts off the conversation and the 3 resume their search. Eventually, they develop a water bottle bomb and escape the freezer. Further investigation reveals the Saturn key card in a locked oven and they use it escape the kitchen. A hallway is outside the door and the group follow it to the Large hospital room. The huge room housed 3 numbered doors (3, 7, and 8) and an unmarked door, along with endless rows of thin beds. They examine the RED on each of the doors and find them nonoperational. Suddenly, Snake and his group come into the room. Snake concludes that the RED on each door is missing a part on the bottom of it. All the players then decide to split up and look for it. During this time, Akane knocks Snake out with a Soporil filled bomb and exchanges his clothes with Nagisa Nijisaki. She puts Nijisaki in a position to be killed by Ace and stashes Snake into a coffin located on the E Deck. She then returns to the hospital room with the others, pretending nothing has happened. By the time she gets there, the REDs on the doors are mysteriously repaired, the part inserted back in. Everyone except Snake gets back to the hospital room. The players split up to find him, with no results. Realizing that they are wasting time, Lotus comes up with one of her proposals. She calculates that to have the most people alive, they have to split into 2 groups of 3, leaving 1 person behind. Akane protests leaving anyone behind, and to settle the argument between her and Lotus, Ace volunteers and injects himself with Soporil so Akane and Junpei can't bring him along. They decide to have Clover, Junpei, and Seven go into Door 7 and Santa, June, and Lotus go into Door 8. The two groups escape their respective rooms and to their surprise, meet back in the hospital room. Before they leave, Clover insists on checking what's behind Door 3 and takes Seven and Ace with her. While they do that, Akane goes along with the Junpei, Lotus, and Santa to check out what the doors the keys they've obtained open. Santa and Lotus go check what is behind the Earth door and Akane and Junpei go investigate where the Saturn elevator leads to. After an innuendo-filled conversation at the elevator, the two companions ride down to find Door 6. They quickly head back to the central staircase where they exchange information with Lotus and Santa. Apparently, they had found a numbered door, Door 1. They quickly realize that they should meet up with the others and head back to the hospital room. They enter a room with an atmosphere full of grief. Ace tells them that Snake is dead and the group is shocked. They go and check out the body themselves. It was blown up, just like the 9th Man. With the smell in the room increasingly becoming unbearable, they go back to the hospital room. Ace tries to help Clover cope with the loss of her brother and that she has to come with them to the next set of doors, before their time is up. Clover reluctantly goes with the other players and they stop in front of the Mercury elevator. Akane and Junpei go and investigate what it leads to. The elevator descends, stopping at the Bottom deck. Right outside the door was Door 2. They went back to give the news to everyone else. To see who is going into what door, Junpei conducts a vote where everyone writes what door they want on a sheet of paper. Ace and Clover want Door 1, Lotus and Seven go with Door 2, and Akane and Santa voted for Door 6. Junpei's vote is the tie breaker. He has a trick up his sleeve; two extra papers with different door numbers so he can pick what door he wants after seeing the voting results. Junpei chooses Door 1, which leaves Santa, Akane, Seven, and Lotus to go through Door 6. Akane's group escape both the steam engine room and the cargo room and end up on the other side of the metal gate, next to the other elevator. They investigate the area further and stumble upon the chapel. Inside this room was what they were looking for all this time, Door 9. To their surprise, there was a second Door 9 and the back of the room and they realized that everyone can escape. They hurry back to retrieve Junpei's group, who had just came from the Captain's quarters. All of them cram into the elevator and rush to the chapel. Clover flatly states that all 7 of them can not escape. She calculates all of the possible combinations and conclude that is 3 people leave, 4 get left behind, and if 4 people leave, then 3 get left behind. Seven tries to sacrifice himself, but everyone is against the idea and they try to think of another way. Santa cuts into the conversation and solves the problem with the best way he knows how to. He grabs Akane as a hostage and reveals that he has a golden revolver. He shoves the gun against her head, and forces Ace and Lotus to authenticate. They go in through the big 9 door and leave the other 3 behind. Santa leads the group in the incinerator and Ace punches him in the stomach and snatches the gun away from him. As Junpei, Clover, Seven, and a surprisingly alive Snake catch up to them, Ace holds Lotus hostage and forces her to authenticate. The door does not open, to Ace's dismay. He tries over and again, but the door won't open. Seven then charges at Ace and floors him. Junpei gets Ace to confess to the murder of the 3 other executives of Cradle Pharmaceutical and he is shocked to find that Snake is still alive. Junpei also reveals that Ace was being manipulated by Zero to purposely kill the other executives and that he did it so he could get revenge for the events of the First Nonary Game. Since Junpei thinks Santa is Zero, he questions him and he admits that he is Akane's brother, but that he is not Zero, but merely an assistant to him. Santa says that this whole Nonary Game was set up so Junpei could save Akane from dying in the incinerator in the past. True Ending Akane sneaks out of the incinerator while the rest of the players are talking to avoid a paradox. Her twelve year old self is found to have been using the morphogenetic field to communicate information to Junpei. She reveals to Junpei that she is in fact, Zero. She tells Junpei exactly what happened during the First Nonary Game and how she got locked up in the incinerator in the first place. She desperately asks Junpei for help on the sudoku puzzle, and he gives her the solution, allowing her to survive in the past. Her present self (June) followed Santa out of Building Q and took their own vehicle and left a SUV and a tied up Ace behind for the other players to get to. When everyone eventually escaped the facility as well, the two were long gone. They decided to follow some fresh tire tracks, hoping to eventually catch up to them but the two were never seen again. Junpei never gave up and spent the rest of his life trying to find her with no success. Virtue's Last Reward Akane's disappearance was done so she can move on to an even grander project the Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition which was co-created alongside Sigma Klim. After Sigma's older mind swapped consciousness with his younger one, he tried to infiltrate the Mars Landing Simulation site, only to fail, losing his arms and eye in the process. When his younger conscience returned, Akane appeared before him under her Zero costume before shedding it. While the two spoke, the Nuclear Reactors which led to the "Red Earth" state in 2074. Akane explained to Sigma that he had to start to prepare the events of the Nonary Game: Ambidex edition over the next 47 years, the project already started with Clover, Alice, and Phi already in cryostasis. During those 47 years, Akane worked along side Sigma. She developed a special bond with Sigma's clone, Kyle Klim. Kyle viewed Akane as the closest thing he had to a mother and was crushed when he realized that despite the fact that he loved Akane as if she was his mother, she did not fully reciprocate the same love back. Eventually, the project was set into motion in 2074. Akane had gathered all of the players and was ready to begin. Akane spoke to Luna before the game started and making sure that she knew her orders despite that Luna disliked the plan of having Akane killed for certain events to occurred. Later Akane entered the first floor warehouse, wearing a player bracelet. Knowing that Dio was infiltrating the facility for the Myrmidons, she willingly let herself be killed by him. Luna then, by Akane's orders, placed Akane's body in her AB room and Zero III moved the AB room. During most routes, Akane's corpse is found in one of the AB rooms. Though everyone does not know who she is, Tenmyouji knew from the minute he saw her, as Tenmyouji is Junpei, only 47 years older. True Ending Due to the time jumping abilities of Sigma and Phi which developed over the course of the Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition, Sigma and Phi eventually are able to awaken before the game starts and knock Dio out, preventing her death. Akane thanks Phi and Sigma for saving her and ties a key around Sigma's ankle before ordering Zero III to release her from her bracelet, which she attaches to the unconscious Dio. Akane tells Sigma and Phi to be ready for the events to come after this new past as their minds are sent back into the future. Akane then places Sigma and Phi back into their AB room so their start will be the same. Following Phi's ending, everyone cooperates so that everyone has 9 BP to escape the facility, though they leave Dio behind because of his Myrmidon status. When the leave, Sigma remembers that he has the key tied to his ankle and returns to the facility with everyone following. When they reach the B. Garden, Sigma remembers a keyhole in a Tombstone from his visit to the B. Garden in one of the alternate timelines. A single Treatment Pod rises from the ground but needs time to defrost. Sigma thinks that Akane will be in the pod but instead, a clone of Sigma appears. After discovering that his appearance is not the one of his youth, Sigma turns around to see that "K" has shed his armor, revealing that in this timeline, Akane had replaced Kyle in the K armor suit. Akane reveals the true purpose of the Ambidex Game, to develop Sigma and Phi's timeline jumping abilities. Akane then attacks Phi with Dio's knife, with Sigma jumping in the way to protect her, forcibly sending both of their consciousness back into the past in 2029. End or Beginning? As the newscaster on the TV Sigma was watching kills herself from Radical-6, Akane walks in wearing her Zero mask and a Free the Soul robe. She tells Sigma that they are in her headquarters in 2029 and are about to leave to Rhizome 9 the next day. She also explains the purpose of the game and how Sigma has to spend the next 45 years mastering genetic engineering and AI programming to make the AB Project work. After that, his consciousness would go back to December 25, 2028 so he and Phi can help her investigate the Mars Mission Test Site and stop Radical-6 from ever spreading out. As her explanation is done, the nuclear reactors explode. Trivia * Akane (and Junpei) tend to make a lot of sexual innuendo during the game. The infamous "elevator scene" is an example of this. * Her alias is June which is the 6th month of the Gregorian calendar. However, her codename is more likely derived from the voodoo doll Junpei bought for her when they were kids. This is discovered upon completing the "true ending" of the game. * Her true name, Akane (茜), refers to a red dye which can be alternately translated as "Rose" or "Madder". * Her Japanese codename, Murasaki (紫) means purple, which is the 6th color of the rainbow (not including indigo). Also, note that she wears a purple dress and has purple eyes. The first syllable, mu, can be ambiguously interpreted in Japanese as either "nothingness" (or "zero") or "six". * Her bracelet's real number is presumably 0. Given the combination that opens the safe (14383421) and multiplying it by 9 = 129450789. This could reveal the actual values of all the bracelets as it is a sequence of numbers from 1 to 9, where 3 (Santa's number) and 6 (Akane's number) are replaced by other numbers, probably their real value. *She has orchestrated two Nonary games, the second Nonary game and the Ambidex Edition, both of which to maintain and alter events of the past. If the player chooses to go through the Cyan door in Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, she would have played the Nonary Game all three times with Clover. Gallery June (1).png June (2).png June (3).png June (4).png June (5).png June (6).png June (7).png June (8).png June (9).png June (10).png June (11).png June poster.jpg|Mobile wallpaper 999_conceptart_ej1sP.jpg 999_conceptart_q0AG0.jpg June concept 1.jpg June concept 2.jpg Juneartbook3.png JuneBlood.png June stairs.png Kanny close-up.png June upclose.png June crying.png June santa hostage 1.png June feverish steam room.png June freaking.png Junpei conforts june.png Junpei june safe end 2.png Sub end dead june.png Sub june dying 2.png True end incinerator 3.png True end incinerator 2.png Kanny summer night.png Sudoku 1.png Zero Escape Vol. 2_ Virtue's Last Reward.jpg|Akane in Virtue's Last Reward Category:Characters Category:Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors characters Category:Virtue's Last Reward characters Category:Female characters